Gold in Brass Clothing
by Breathe Like You Can
Summary: Hermione Granger was the first muggle-born born in nearly two decades. Muggle-borns are sacred - coveted for their powerful magic and fresh bloodlines. Hermione must conceal the truth of her birth and her magic from the Wizarding elite if she is to avoid their clutches. AU. Eventual HHr AND Dramione. RATED M for later chapters.
1. Chapter 1: His Alice

_**Disclaimer: It all belongs to J.K Rowling and Lewis Carroll.**_

 _ **A/N: Expect irregular updates on this story, sorry! Sometimes within days, other times a week or more.**_

 _ **This is a slow burn. Romance won't appear until Hermione does a lot of growing up.**_

 _ **And it's AU, so please try not to criticise the details that have been changed unless it's helpful.**_

 _ **All other feedback would be AMAZING!**_

 _ **Breathe Like You Can**_

 _ **Chapter 1: His Alice**_

 **19 September, 1984**

Dan Granger was infatuated.

The first infatuation of his life was with a lively, spirited beauty who had stormed into his life like a hurricane when he was still a young, studious dental student. She was the energy to his quiet stoicism, the bold affection to his shy countenance. He had never looked at another girl again.

Until her.

The only girl who could ever compete for his infatuation with his lovely Helen was his _beloved_ Hermione.

Generous curls fell all around her in every direction and huge, chocolate eyes were squinted in concentration. She was almost a carbon copy of her stunning mother, but the tiny, pink tongue poking from the corner of her mouth and her steadfast attentiveness to the task in front of her was precisely her father.

Dan clucked his tongue at how tightly she gripped the pencil in her hand as she doggedly traced the alphabet on the practice paper in front of her.

"Not so tight, love," he murmured gently, laying his large palm on those tiny fingers until she loosened her grip. She nodded distractedly, hardly missing a beat in her task.

"Blueberry pancakes with sprinkles," Helen sang, placing a large plate in the centre of the kitchen table filled with pancakes and topped with little, blue birthday candles. "Homework away, Hermione."

Hermione sputtered indignantly as her mother pulled the pencil from her grip and the papers from her. "Muuuuum," she whined, "I was having fun!"

Dan was the only one to notice his wife's grimace at that, but she quickly recovered. "No homework during family time," she said firmly, placing plates in front of each of them.

Hermione, stubborn as she was, opened her mouth to protest, but a firm, " _Hermione_ " from her father made her snap her mouth shut and settle into a pout. "Time to make a birthday wish, remember?" he added.

She brightened at that, tugging the plate of pancakes towards her with small, grabbing hands.

The Grangers had given up on birthday _cake_ after Hermione had thrown a tantrum on her third birthday, insisting she wanted pancakes instead. In a twist of events that nobody could explain to this day, the cake, candles and all, had exploded throughout the kitchen when Helen had made to slice off a piece. Dan's mother still refused to eat a thing her daughter-in-law cooked and Helen had decided that pancakes were a simpler alternative anyway.

"Have you got a wish, Sweetheart?" Helen asked.

Hermione scrunched up her face and nodded, heaving a deep breath to blow out all the candles in one big, spitting huff.

Dan grinned, "That's my girl." He kissed her on her mass of curls. "What did you wish for?"

"Dan!" Helen berated, though she was grinning too. "She can't tell you that or it won't come true."

Hermione rolled her eyes in that supercilious way only 5-year-olds could accomplish. "That's not real, Mum," she explained to her snickering mother. "I wished for no more recess."

Helens laugh faded rather quickly at that. "What's wrong with recess?"

Hermione shrugged, helping herself to a pancake. "It's boring," she said simply. "We don't learn anything at recess."

Helen gave her husband one of those worried looks she wore so often since Hermione started school a few weeks ago and had come home every day chattering excitedly about lessons and books, but never about friends or 'normal' fun things. Like recess.

Dan just gave his wife a reassuring smile and slid a small, wrapped parcel across the table to his daughter who was obliviously munching on a pancake. His beautiful girl glanced up at him with a look of absolute delight and he felt his tense wife relax only a little into her chair beside him.

Hermione removed the pretty wrapping paper cautiously and beamed up at them both when she found a fresh book in her hands that she couldn't yet read. "What is it?" she asked excitedly, nearly bouncing in her chair.

"It's called _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ ," Dan said fondly. "It's about a very special little girl who falls down a rabbit hole where she has wild and impossible adventures."

Hermione positively glowed as she cradled the book carefully in her hands. "When can we read it?" She sucked in an excited breath as she came to a realisation. "When I learn to read by myself, I can read it at recess instead of playing!"

Dan glanced at his wife who looked positively pained at that announcement.

"Of course you can," Dan told his daughter fondly, bringing his large arm around his wife to pull her tense form into his side. "If there's one thing Alice teaches us," he murmured, more for his wife's sake than his daughter's, "it's that it's ' _quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way_.'"

Both of his girls smiled, nearly identical dimples denting their cheeks.

Yes, he was infatuated.

 **19 September, 1986**

 _Surely it was impossible_ , Dan thought, _for pancakes to explode._

His daughter's 7th birthday had rolled around along with a hoard of extended family to celebrate the occasion on an unusually chilly Friday night. Of course, the party came to a rather sudden end when Helen's traditional batch of birthday pancakes spat right out of the pan in hot jets of flour and blueberries like violent lava.

His mother, hair dripping with hot batter, had stormed out of the house muttering about 'the cursed cooking of a mad woman' to Helen's absolute chagrin.

He left his harried wife and a scattering of confused relatives in the sticky kitchen in favour of seeking out the rather glum birthday girl. Unsurprisingly, he found her curled up in the window seat of his study. She clutched a book in her hands, though for once rather than reading it, her head was turned to the view outside the frosty window to the gloomy rain beyond.

Dan swallowed the lump in his throat at the small sniffles he could just make out. He brought himself to kneel in front of her and reached out to grasp her chin, gently tugging her head to face him and brushing the tear tracts from her face.

He didn't say anything; he merely waited until she was ready.

"Angie and Lola said I'd look like a beaver, except beaver's have better hair," she murmured, so softly he barely heard her.

Dan let out an irritated huff. Those damnable cousins of Hermione's had the nastiest mouth he'd ever heard on children. He'd known they'd be a pest tonight and had even been on the verge of herding them away from his daughter when he noticed they'd cornered her in the kitchen. Of course, the _impossible_ pancake explosion had cut him short.

"You look just like your mother," he told her, stoking her cheek with his thumb, "and she's the most beautiful woman in the world."

"She is, isn't she?" Hermione whispered. Big, vulnerable eyes peered up at him. "You really think I look like her?"

"I do," he said immediately, eyes roaming her pretty features.

The loss of her baby teeth had revealed rather large central incisors which other children had made a target out of, along with her curly (and occasionally frizzy) hair. It was clear that she would be just as beautiful as her mother someday, but kids weren't likely to notice that while she was still a bookish and often bossy 7-year-old who was forever showing them up in the classroom.

Hermione sniffed, looking a bit pleased even as she wiped away some tears. When it was just the two of them, they never needed many words to communicate.

"Can I be home schooled?" she asked, fiddling with her book.

"Did something happen at school today?" he asked in his usual, gentle murmur.

She met his eyes, more tears spilling out of those too-intelligent eyes. "Something _always_ happens."

He sighed at that; it was certainly true. Hermione was a brilliant student who mostly kept to herself, yet somehow strange incidents were forever occurring around her and she was constantly getting blamed.

Last week a girl's hair had caught of fire after she called Hermione a friendless loser. The week before that, a flock of birds has a bout of violent diarrhoea over a group of boys who had been chanting ' _Granger, Granger, looks like a rat, only stranger_.'

Of course, nobody could punish Hermione for such impossible occurrences, but they only served to isolate her more.

His hand dropped to the worn book in her hands and he smiled at the familiar cover. "You're my Alice, remember?" he murmured, stoking the pages. "You're not supposed to be normal. That would be terribly boring."

She let out a brief, soggy laugh.

"I have something for you," he told her, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a small, wrapped package.

Hermione's eyes sparked a little as she quickly and carefully unfolded the wrapping paper from the small gift.

" _Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There_ ," she read, a faint smile tilting her mouth, her dimples almost visible. But the almost-smile was quickly replaced by worry.

"Dad?" she murmured, turning anxious eyes back to him. "Am I mad too, if impossible things keep happening to me like they do to Alice?"

Dan smiled softly. "Maybe. But what's life without a few impossibly explosive pancakes?" he winked at his daughter, his Alice. "' _Sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast_.'"

Her full, dimpled smile was accompanied by the sudden waning of the rain as the sun finally peered through the clouds, melting the strange, unseasonably heavy frost from the window.

 **19 September, 1988**

"This thing is mad," Helen said incredulously, staring wide-eyed at the small metal cage and the mangy creature that was bouncing from corner to corner within it.

"Exactly," said Dan, sounding immensely pleased with himself.

For Hermione's 9th birthday, they had forgone a birthday celebration almost altogether. The previous year, in an attempt to make up for the disastrous family epidemic of her 7th birthday, Helen had thrown her daughter a lovely birthday party in the backyard for her and her classmates. When no one had shown up, nobody had been more quietly devastated than Helen, or more resigned and utterly unsurprised than Hermione.

Accepting that she was not as gifted at interpreting her daughter's needs as her husband, Helen had left the birthday planning to Dan this year.

"Can I hold him?" Hermione pleaded, nearly vibrating with excitement as she watched the orange fur ball gnaw savagely on the wire of the cage. She had actually put down her worn book which her mother immediately noticed. Helen grinned at her husband.

Dan carefully opened the cage, struggling for a moment to grasp the violent ball of fluff that growled at his grasping hands. He offered it to his wide-eyed daughter.

"Careful," Helen warned.

The warning was needless, however, because the struggling, erratic creature stilled immediately as Hermione gently pulled it from her father's grasp. She stared into the cat's strange, yellow eyes and it stared back, almost knowingly. When she pulled him to her chest, the tiny body curled up in her hands and began to purr.

Hermione beamed. Dan and Helen just stared.

"What shall we call him?" Hermione asked happily. "We couldn't possibly name him Snowdrop with his colouring. We could name him Kitty, but Dinah's Kitty was black and it's a terribly dull name."

"Cheshire?" Dan suggested.

Hermione thought about it for a moment but shook her head authoritatively. "He doesn't look like the smiling type." Indeed, the decidedly ugly, orange cat was still glaring at Dan.

Hermione set the kitten down on the table, shaking her head at him when he tried to cling to her. "Come on, now," she sighed. "How should we know what to name you when we can't get a look at you?"

The kitten stared at her for a moment, clearly annoyed, and then released her as if he were reluctantly responding to her request. Huffily, the ugly thing stretched out on the table and proceeded to lave a paw with its tiny tongue as if they weren't worth his attention anymore.

"What's wrong with his legs?" Helen asked. Indeed, the kittens back legs were rather mangled looking, as if the bones had been broken and left to heal in a warped and unpleasant fashion. "Dan, what happened to him?"

Dan sighed at the two pairs of nearly identical eyes that pleaded with him for a comforting answer he couldn't give. "He's a stray, Loves," he murmured in his usual soft way. "He hasn't had it easy in life so far."

Helen's eyes had softened considerably when she looked down at the mangy kitten again. Hermione, on the other hand, looked positively heart broken, her lower lip trembling violently. The little kitten came to her aid immediately, rubbing his side against her hand and staring up at her with that strangely intelligent, yellow gaze.

Hermione seemed to draw strength from the plucky kitten and nodded her head firmly, brusquely wiping at her eyes. "We'll call you Crookshanks then," she said. "A name for a noble cat who will accomplish great things, but won't forget his humble beginnings."

Helen and Dan grinned at their little girl. Even Crookshanks seemed terribly pleased because he proceeded to give chase to his tail and gnawed on it with satisfaction when he caught the offending limb.

"I told you he was mad," Helen said, watching the scene with amusement.

"He'll fit right in," Hermione piped up.

Dan grinned, exchanging a look with his lovely Alice. "' _We're all mad here.'_ "

 **19 September, 1990**

It was another rainy evening, as it always seemed to be lately. Nothing but rain and gloom and frost. Fog curled around the trees lining the sidewalk and dulled the gleam of streetlights. The night was eerie and still, as if the world knew better than to venture out into such a melancholy night.

The Grangers had been enjoying a nice, quiet night at home, sprawled across the living room eating store-bought cake. Hermione had already made her way halfway through her newly gifted copy of War and Peace, but Dan had known her interest was waning from the way she'd kept glancing at her favourite, battered novels stacked neatly on the coffee table. Crookshanks had been sprawled against her lap in a completely undignified position, not moving except to glare half-heartedly at anyone that came too close to Hermione to deliver her more cake.

That had been a little over half an hour ago.

The peaceful scene had been broken by a knock at the door which had sent Crookshanks bolting towards the foyer in a completely uncharacteristic display of enthusiasm.

Helen had returned from answering the door looking remarkably confounded, but that was nothing to Dan's own mystification when she was followed by a tall, wire-thin woman who was wearing what looked like a long, dark dressing gown and a pointed hat. Her hair - dark grey - was pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head and her mouth was pressed into such a tight line that even Dan - a wall of a man - felt cowed.

Dan was still unsure why none of them had thrown her out upon first laying eyes on her; perhaps she'd done something with her stick - her _wand_ , she'd called it - or perhaps it was simply due to her innate air of authority.

Nevertheless, Minerva McGonagall, flanked by a proud-looking Crookshanks, soon had them staring blankly into their _conjured_ teacups, processing the fact that their Hermione was witch and had been accepted into a magical school that would take her far, far away from them.

"That's why weird things always happen around me," Hermione murmured, staring at the letter in her hands with unconcealed fascination.

It wasn't a question, but Minerva answered it as such anyway. "Yes, most likely," she said. The regal woman seemed to hesitate for a moment before asking, "What kind of strange things, child?"

Dan got the impression that it was more of a loaded question than she let on.

Hermione blinked. Where, after all, should she even start?

It was Helen that answered though. "Things catch on fire, things disappear and reappear in odd places, animals do strange things spontaneously..." she trailed off and blinked a few times as a realisation hit her. "My cakes explode."

Dan made a strange noise, somewhere between a snort and a groan. Minerva listened closely, but didn't look especially surprised.

"The weather changes when I'm sad," Hermione murmured so lowly, it was almost a whisper.

At that, Helen looked pained and Minerva's eyebrows just about hit her hairline.

"That's unusual?" Dan asked, quick to pick up on the woman's mood change.

Minerva threw him a sharp look. She cleared her throat, twice, as if she were searching for the right words to start with. Dan could see Hermione's anxiety nearly choking her at the prospect of being 'unusual' even for a witch and he wished dearly that he'd kept his mouth shut.

"Hermione is... different than most witches and wizards," Minerva answered, discomfort seeping into her stern persona. "You see, Mr and Mrs Granger, you are both non-magic folk - or what we in the wizarding community call 'Muggles'. Witches and wizards almost always have at least one magical parent. Hermione doesn't."

The Grangers exchanged a look. "So it's unusual, but not unheard of?" Helen asked.

"Yes," Minerva answered, though she didn't sound satisfied and Dan feared that the other shoe was yet to drop. "Muggle-borns such as Hermione were once born frequently enough. Every one to two years in Britain, on average. But the births grew farther and farther apart over time. Hermione was the first muggle-born to be born in almost two decades."

The Grangers didn't react. Dan didn't understand the relevance of whatever Minerva was getting at and the only indication that her words had serious consequence was the hesitation in her tone and the pursing of her thin lips.

"Muggle-borns are... different than the average witch or wizard," she went on. "While most wizarding children receive a magical gene from at least one of their parents - or not at all, in the case of squibs - muggle-born witches and wizards are born with magic that is intrinsic to them." Minerva hesitated again at their blank faces. "Hermione did not _receive_ her magic genetically; the magic _chose_ her."

Helen shifted restlessly. "How does any of this affect Hermione?" she asked, sounding harried with worry. Dan leaned across Hermione to grasp her hand in his. She squeezed his fingers tightly, her eyes flitting restlessly between him and Professor McGonagall. "Why does it matter where her magic is from?"

Minerva's tightly pursed lips seemed to relax into a barely-visible expression of sorrow at Helen's display of motherly angst. She was clearly a strict woman, but Dan could tell she wasn't cold - she understood their concern.

"Muggle-borns have always been sacred to the wizarding world," Minerva said, more slowly now, as if her discomfort with this explanation was growing with every word. "The nature of their magic makes them stronger, powerful. Hermione's magic will likely surpass all of her classmates. And muggle-born bloodlines are fresh - an entirely new addition to the small, magical communities throughout the world. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, muggle-borns have become increasingly rare. While once naturally occurring consistently, Hermione is now a rarity."

"So she'll... stand out?" Dan asked.

Minerva nodded with a graveness that Dan didn't understand.

"The wizarding world is old and accustomed to tradition. So much so that you would likely find many of our laws and politics antiquated and even barbaric," Minerva spoke clearly, but with obvious derision. "The Old Families hold power and are always seeking more of it. They will, undoubtedly, vie for Hermione's favour."

Helen looked more confused at that, but Dan's mood darkened. He suspected he knew where Minerva was going with this.

"They'll want to use her as a political asset?" Helen queried.

"Yes, there's that," Minerva agreed. "But also, for other things," she said, vaguely.

"What other things," Dan gritted through his teeth.

Minerva hesitated, but answered him frankly. "The old wizarding families have maintained power for thousands of years by building powerful bloodlines with the strongest mages in history."

The other shoe dropped. "They'll want to _breed_ her?!" Dan roared, his voice a growl of outrage which boomed from his barrel chest.

Helen quickly caught him in her arms, murmuring soothing words to him. His mind was fire and his nerves alight with rage.

 _He would burn those wizarding lines to the ground, their millennia-old families be damned._

It was the small hand that wrapped around his clenched fist that brought him crashing back to his senses, like a lulling shore soothing an angry wave. She watched him with worried, chocolate eyes. She watched him with the sweetness of a girl who lived in fairy tales because that was where she found kindness in the world. She watched him with her heart etched into the worried crease between her brows. His Alice.

He fell to his knees before her and wrapped her tiny frame up in his thick arms. "I won't let anything happen to you," he vowed into her hair.

"I know," she said with such frankness that he very nearly smiled.

"I won't either," Minerva said from behind him. Dan released Hermione enough to face their strange guest again. Her face had softened significantly. She looked over him with approval and down to Hermione with satisfaction. "In fact, I have a plan."

Minerva set about explaining her plan over more store-bought cake and conjured tea. She explained how the Ministry of Magic functioned around the Sacred Twenty-Eight and how the Old Families used their strong bloodlines as leverage to maintain power. She explained the difference between more traditional families like the Rosiers who collected muggle-borns as prizes to leverage their own power and status, and forward-thinking families like the Abbotts who believed that muggle-borns should be given every opportunity to thrive in peace. She explained how the families, in their stubbornness, had come to war a decade ago when a muggle-hating muggle-born had led a revolution intent on enslaving muggles and snatching their muggle-born babes from their arms; a war which ironically wiped out many of the few living muggle-borns left.

Most importantly, Minerva explained how Hermione could evade their attention altogether.

"Currently, the only person outside of this room that knows about the existence of another muggle-born is Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts. Albus suggests that you consider enlisting the assistance of another muggle-born; someone who could instruct Hermione on how to conceal the extent of her magic and..." Minerva trailed off, but with a stern look from Dan, she didn't stop. "Even if Hermione is taught to conceal her magic, somebody will inevitably wonder why nobody has ever met her or any of her relatives. Somebody will notice that she has no ties to the wizarding world."

"She needs a cover story," Helen murmured, looking down at her hands sadly. "She'll need a fake family."

Dan swallowed down the putrid taste in his mouth.

"Yes," Minerva said, tactfully avoiding Helen's tearful eyes. "There are two muggle-borns of approximately the right age whom Albus trusts implicitly for this task. While Lily Potter would have been his first choice, she is much too notable among the public. The other, preferable choice is Marianne Diggory. The Diggorys are well-known for their reclusive personal life, and are strong supporters of a more liberal and muggle-positive government. They also have a young son in Hogwarts who could be of some assistance to Hermione while she's at school."

Hermione frowned, her too-intelligent brain clearly noticing the flaws in that plan. "Wouldn't somebody have noticed that Marianne doesn't have a daughter though?"

Minerva's approving look spoke worlds of how much she appreciated Hermione's smarts. "I'm afraid it isn't a perfect plan, Hermione." She held her head high and pinned them all with a challenging look. "To the wizarding world, you would be the illegitimate daughter of Marianne's husband - Amos - and a muggle woman, to whom you have a striking resemblance." Minerva gestured to Helen.

As one, Dan and Helen began to protest, but Minerva quickly cut them off in a firm voice, her Scottish brogue growing thicker with her authoritative tone. "You must understand, Mr and Mrs Granger, as unsettling as the cover story may be, nothing could protect Hermione's identity better," she said firmly. "If Hermione were to accidentally display too much of her power, it could be partially explained away by her hailing from a powerful bloodline such as the Diggorys. It would also enable Hermione to learn closely from Marianne without raising suspicion _and_ explain her continued association with the two of you."

There was a short lull, marred only by Helen's mutterings about how anyone could possibly believe that her enormously stubborn daughter could belong to anyone but her extraordinarily stubborn husband.

Dan was silent, processing. He looked to his little daughter who had been mostly silent as she received a whirlwind of life-changing information. "What do you think, Love?" he murmured to her.

Hermione looked up at him, over to her tearful mother, and then back to him again. She looked so old, too old for her years.

"I'm scared," she whispered to him, her small voice choking a little in her throat. She swallowed. "I found my rabbit hole, Dad, but I don't know if Wonderland is the right place for me."

Dan's heart clenched at those wide, guileless eyes made bigger by fat tears gathering in the corners. He heard a small sob from his wife.

"Where is the right place for you?" he asked her, the tiny thing that held his life and happiness in the palm of her hands.

She looked so lost in that moment and he was suddenly aware that for all her intelligence, for all the wisdom that she had beyond her years, she was still just a small, scared 11-year-old girl.

"A place where I fit," she whispered.

He knew. That was all she'd ever wanted.

He placed large hands on each of her tiny shoulders and leaned in close to tell her, vehemently, with everything in him, "Wonderland was never a place Alice went to fit in, Hermione. Wonderland is where Alice went to shine."


	2. Chapter 2: Eldridge Estate

_**Chapter 2: Eldritch Estate**_

 **7 October, 1990**

"Have you got your writing paper?"

"Yes, Mum."

"Your pens?"

"Yes, Mum."

"Extra pens, just in case?"

"Sure, Mum."

"Your lunch is packed. How about a change of clothes?"

"Why would she need a change of clothes? She'll be home before supper."

"Well, you never know. She might magic them off or something."

"Why would I magic off my clothes?"

"You better not magic off your clothes. Professor McGonagall said they have a son."

Hermione rolled her eyes at her grumbling father whose large, imposing figure was looming in the doorway.

"I promise not to magic off my clothes," she deadpanned, throwing some spare pens into her old schoolbag.

There was a knock at the door. "I'll get it," Helen sang, sounding more harried than cheerful. She rushed from the room in a fit of restless energy.

Hermione sighed, shrugging her arms into her backpack and looking up into her father's wary face. He'd been worried about her lately - she could tell. He didn't worry like her mother who had been flitting around the house for the past two weeks fussing with one thing or another between chance epiphanies about everything that could go wonderfully right or terribly wrong in Hermione's future.

Her father, on the other hand, had taken to watching the weather carefully.

"It's sunnier today," Dan noted in an unconvincingly offhand sort of way.

"I'm excited to start school again," Hermione explained, taking his hand and leaning into his large, comforting frame.

Hermione's father melted into her, his thick arms curling around her shoulders. He huffed in a way that was almost a laugh.

"You've only had two weeks off, Love," he reminded her.

"Two weeks too long," she grumbled into his chest, inhaling the comforting scent of home.

"Quickly now, Hermione!" her mother called from the living room. "We've almost got the fluke set up."

"The _floo_ ," a tight voice corrected.

Hermione trailed behind her father into the living room where she found her mother inspecting the fireplace with worry and Professor McGonagall watching her with raised brows.

"I assure you it's perfectly safe, Mrs Granger," McGonagall insisted in what might have sounded like irritation if it weren't for the mild look of amusement on her narrow face.

"Of course, of course," Helen muttered, fussing with the flames she had built there with no small amount of hysteria. "After all, why _wouldn't_ it be perfectly safe for my only child to step into a _fire_ and magically _disappear_?"

Dan, calm as ever, simply approached his wife and silently took her in his arms, forcing her to still her fussing. She deflated quickly.

"Very well," McGonagall said unflappably, producing a small, velvet pouch from her robes with a flourish and beckoning Hermione forwards. "After you, my dear. Where is your familiar? Ah, Crookshanks, yes there you are. Both of you, into the fireplace then."

McGonagall took a pinch of glittering powder from the pouch and threw it into the flames which immediately turned from brightest orange to emerald green.

Hermione, who had already been told what to expect, took a deep breath and forced herself to feel calm.

She was a witch.

She could do this.

Scooping a delighted-looking Crookshanks up in her arms, she stepped them both into the warm, ticklish flames and turned to face her gaping parents with a confident smile. Her mother smiled back timidly, with a frail spark of hope. Her father smiled back proudly.

"Eldridge Estate."

And she was gone.

Eldridge Estate was set upon a sprawling, grassy plane in the country and in its centre was a cozy, light-filled manor house made of pale stone and bursting with all the comforts of home. The centrepiece of every room were large windows which displayed the countryside and easily drew the eye away from the clearly historic heirlooms with scattered the manor. The manor itself was decorated more stylishly than Hermione had anticipated given the antiquated customs of the wizarding world, and was decked out in fashionable whites and creams with splashes of strategic colour - mostly yellow. Most of all though, the largeness of the estate could not detract from its comforting homeliness and cheerful disposition, filled as it was with cushioned surfaces, walls of books, and the clutter of a well-used home.

Of course, none of the beauty of Eldridge Estate could detract from its Lady. Marianne Diggory was gold embodied with her thick waves of satin hair, sparkling grey eyes, and easy smile. Her laugh was a waterfall of bells and she laughed often and always with sincerity. It was clear that she was older by the smile lines marking cheeks and creasing her eyes, but this only added to her warm, motherly disposition.

The Lady of the Manor ushered Hermione from room to room, chattering to the shy child in her wake about anything and everything that she thought was splendid. She pronounced the dining room a "palace of conversation" (though failed to speak with or even introduce Hermione to the balding aristocrat - presumably, Mr Diggory - who smiled pleasantly and without surprise at the passing females over his late breakfast and newspaper), the kitchen a "festival of good tidings" (which Hermione assumed was a reference to the tiny, wrinkly creature - a 'house elf' named 'Snicket', apparently - who trailed them around with a lot of "How may I pleases yous?" and "Its is such a pleasure to meets the young missus!"), and the library a "distraction of the most pleasant kind" (which was not so much an observation of the room as it was a good-natured complaint made while trying to drag Hermione from the room towering with books).

At long last, they found Cedric seated in the sunroom.

Cedric, only two years older than Hermione, was tall for his age and - to Hermione's blushing observation - very handsome. His hair was the same dark shade as his fathers, but his eyes were the same sparkling, laughing grey of his mother. There was a dimple in one of his cheeks and Hermione wondered if the other cheek matched, though it was impossible to tell when he grinned quite so crookedly, as if he knew a secret that nobody else did.

"What are you doing?" Hermione asked perplexedly, Cedric's handsomeness quickly forgotten as she noticed that he sat before a chess board opposite none other than Crookshanks.

Cedric spared her a smiling glance before returning his sharp attention back to the orange feline who stared back at him with an expression of dire boredom. "I'm defending my reputation as a champion of strategy, of course," he explained, cheerily.

Hermione blinked. "Against my cat?" she queried, worried for his sanity. She looked about the room for Marianne's assistance, or perhaps a doctor of the mind, only to find herself suddenly and worrisomely alone in the company of this strange boy.

Cedric sputtered, his focus broken. "Cat?!" he repeated indignantly. "This fierce feline is no ordinary cat. He's a kneazle. Or part-kneazle, at least."

"What's a kneazle?" Hermione questioned.

"A magical feline," Cedric answered, suddenly less interested in their conversation. He returned his attention to his game.

Hermione looked at Crookshanks, who looked back at her as if to say, "Well, what did you expect?"

"Magical or not, Crookshanks doesn't know how to play chess," Hermione said, her usual bossiness making its appearance.

Cedric ignored her in favour of retracting his pawn, only to move it forward again a moment later, as if the move would prompt Crookshanks into responding. Remarkably, it did prompt something in Crookshanks who leapt onto the board and laid down upon it, using his tail to sweep away a hoard of screaming chess pieces.

Hermione watched the screaming chess pieces with wide eyes for a moment, then turned her eyes back to a beaming Cedric.

"I told you so," she told him, uncaring of how snotty she might sound.

Cedric only grinned at Crookshanks. "A marvellous move, old chum! I never would have thought up such a remarkably unique strategy."

Crookshanks purred and allowed Cedric the honour of scratching him behind the ears.

Hermione was sure her mouth was hanging open when Cedric turned to her and shrugged. "You don't like being wrong, do you?"

Hermione bristled. "I wasn't _wrong_ -"

"Don't beat yourself up," Cedric went on, uncaring that Hermione's mood seemed to be translating into a disconcerting amount of floating vases around the room. "It took me awhile to figure it out too. No brothers or sisters to ignore everything we say, you get me? So we grow up thinking that everything we say is worth listening to."

Hermione's temper was quickly replaced by confusion. A number of vases clunked gracelessly back to their table tops.

"But I was right," Hermione argued with considerably less steam. "Crookshanks can't play chess."

Cedric only shrugged unconcernedly again. "Oh, sure. I have bright ideas from time to time too." Hermione rather doubted that. "But telling someone that a kelpie doesn't have feathers won't stop the lot of them from stuffing a pillow full of wet, snarling weeds."

Hermione stared. Had Cedric made a strange sort of sense, or was he just batty, she wondered.

"Care for a game of chess? I have to get back to school soon, but I have enough time to try out a few new strategies while we chat."

"With me?" Hermione asked, more than a little shocked. She'd been bossing him around only moments ago and he wanted to spend more time with her?

"Of course. Word has it that you're my little sister, after all." He winked.

"Oh. I guess I am. Sort of." The reminder of her circumstances had Hermione's brightening mood dimming again.

But Cedric was perhaps more observant and intelligent than Hermione gave him credit for because he quickly scooped up her hand and stepped into her personal space. "Or, if you're up for it," he said, "we could be friends instead?"

Hermione blinked up at him. Her fake brother. Her real friend.

Her first friend.

She smiled, bigger than she thought she was capable of, and he smiled back just as big, finally revealing his matching dimples.

Hermione had made her first friend. And minutes later, she had thrown a chess board at her first friend's head when he declared his victory in their chess match by executing the 'Crookshanks Strategy' wherein he collapsed bodily on the battlefield and threw her squealing King to the floor.

"We must never clink our teaspoon against our cup, Hermione," Marianne chided good-naturedly a few hours later as they sat at a small table on the balcony off the sunroom which overlooked the estate. The weather had only gotten lovelier as the day wore on and Marianne had insisted that they take their tea outside.

"Does that matter?" Hermione asked, abandoning her tea in favour of a scone but nevertheless straightening her spine to match Marianne's flawless posture. "Nobody will expect me to have been raised traditionally by an Old Family anyway."

Marianne smiled, seemingly increasingly pleased by Hermione's displays of intelligence. "Yes, but that doesn't mean we should give them any reason to think you're less than them," she explained, and her expression grew suddenly stern. "We want people to underestimate your magic, not _who you are_ , Hermione."

Marianne was a summer rain. Her delight in life was like little splashes of warmth to counter the arid air, but if you cared to be vigilant enough, you might see the powerful thunderstorm that slept within her.

"Will they?" Hermione asked, more curious than concerned. She'd never been popular, after all. "Will they look down on me?"

"Yes," Marianne answered in a no-nonsense sort of way that reminded Hermione of Professor McGonagall who had disappeared shortly after making introductions. "They will look down on my husband for supposedly straying from me. And they will look down on you for being the product of his deceit."

Hermione frowned. The scone she was buttering no longer looked so appetising. "Well that's not fair to Mr Diggory."

Marianne's smile was kinder than Hermione thought she deserved. She reached across the table and took one of Hermione's small hands in her own.

"My dear, Amos would do anything for family, and now you are our family too," she insisted.

"I have a family," Hermione responded quickly and perhaps a bit rudely. She flushed.

Marianne just laughed and dropped Hermione's hand in favour of pouring herself another cup of tea. "Of course you do," she conceded. "I'm not talking about the lies we'll tell the wizarding world about your heritage. We muggle-borns have a different sort of bond. Eat your scone, Dear."

Hermione jumped and guiltily picked up her scone and nibbled at it.

Marianne continued, her eyes gazing out at the grassy plane. "We grow up among muggles feeling detached and lost because we aren't one of them. Then at age 11, we are plucked from our homes and our families and everything we have ever known and thrust into a new world where we are told we belong - but where we're still so different." Hermione dropped her scone again, the taste in her mouth like dust.

"But we have each other." Hermione looked up at Marianne's voice and was startled to see she was being watched closely. "As far back as wizarding history goes, there have been muggle-borns. And in all that history, we have been prised by those who lust for power and sought to own us as if we were chattel - for as powerful as we are, the lost are easily manipulated when they are promised a place to belong."

Hermione was caught up in Marianne's words as if they were lulling her into a dream she couldn't shake herself awake from, the sweet voice confirming everything she hoped was not true. The pretty blue sky began to darken as clouds rolled in with mystifying suddenness.

Marianne didn't so much as blink as the weather changed around her, but merely flicked her long fingertips towards Hermione who found her scone suddenly coated with a thick layer of jam and cream. "But they forget, sometimes, that we don't actually need _them_ to belong somewhere, Hermione," Marianne murmured, her words floating across the table as the air around them began to mist. "They forget that we muggle-borns are our own people, even if we were not born and raised together."

Marianne finally looked up at the sky and fluttered her fingers again in a quick manoeuvre that Hermione couldn't quite follow. The clouds shifted just barely, just enough for a piece of sky to reveal itself to them.

"Even now, when there are so few of us left," Marianne murmured, watching the small hole in the clouds she was able to create, "we will always have our people. Balanced somewhere between the muggle and the magical world, we will support each other." A sliver of sunlight made its way through the clouds to shine down on the grassy plane before them. "And you are part of that family, Hermione."

Hermione watched the sky, watched how Marianne didn't plough through her magic, but tempered it with sunshine and lovely words.

"What about the bad muggle-borns?" Hermione asked. "Like the one who led the Old Families into war a decade ago?"

Marianne's face darkened, but she continued to hold open the clouds.

"Tom Riddle," she murmured, sounding less like herself and more like a downtrodden person than Hermione though her capable of. "Most knew him as Lord Voldemort. He was a traitor to our people."

"How?" Hermione asked, curious.

Marianne sighed, looking sad. "It is not common knowledge, but Tom Riddle was raised an orphan, my dear. He was treated cruelly, he was shunned for his magical talent, and so he learned to hate."

"Well that's hardly his fault," Hermione argued, frowning.

"I did not say it was," Marianne answered, seeming to think over her words and choose them carefully. "Riddle may not have been born a bad person, and likely did not deserve what happened to him. But when he reacted to the cruelty of others with cruelty of his own, his magic evolved to match that."

"Evolved?"

"Our magic is not like other magic, Hermione." Marianne sipped her tea thoughtfully, staring out at the streak of light across the grassy plane. "It is not genetic to us, like the colour of our eyes. It is not so easily tamed like other magic. It is what we need it to be and, to some extent, it is what we shape it into." She gestured at the angry sky above them. "Your magic is big, Hermione. Much bigger than mine. Bigger than even Lily Potter's. Someday, it might be bigger than Tom Riddle's."

Hermione stared at the hole Marianne had made in the clouds. "But you can do what I can do," Hermione argued, a hand gesturing pointedly at the sky above even as she wondered whether the small hole that Marianne made was the extent of what she could manage to temper Hermione's magic.

Marianne gave her a sad smile. "I'm afraid I don't come close, my dear," she said, confirming Hermione's worried train of thought. "I was born during a time of peace. When I was growing and learning and shaping my magic, I did not need to be... more. Tom Riddle was born to a miserable existence so his magic grew to be cruel and murderous. His magic grew larger to fulfil his will to conquer, just as the young and developing Lily Potter's magic grew larger to protect against Riddle's rising threat."

"But why would anybody follow Riddle, if he was so cruel?" Hermione questioned, the very idea frightening her.

"Because he offered the Old Families what they wanted." Marianne sighed. "He offered them the chance to extend their power over the non-magical world, he offered them the right to steal sacred muggle-born children from their 'unworthy' parents, he offered them prestige and power."

"But Lily Potter defeated him?"

"Yes," Marianne answered, though her tone left a lot to be desired. "Riddle came for Lily's young son, Harry Potter, on All Hallows' Eve of 1981. Lily Potter was a key leader in the resistance against Riddle, but even Riddle's followers would never stand for the murder of a muggle-born. Riddle learned where Lily had hidden her family away through a close friend-turned-traitor and intended to steal her son as a means of controlling her and attaining her allegiance. He made his move the night he got word of an attack on one of his holdings led by Lily and her husband, Lord Potter."

"But?" Hermione prompted.

"But," Marianne smirked with perplexing amusement, "Riddle did not account for Sirius Black: a powerful wizard from an ancient and formidable family, a traitor to his family's allegiances, an incorrigible playboy, and... babysitter for the Potters." Hermione blinked, confused by this turn of events. "Lily returned from the raid early when she learned of Sirius's intent to... delight a young muggle woman by showing off his charming attachment to his godson."

Hermione choked on a strange noise.

"Lily arrived moments ahead of Riddle, who was taken by surprise. She defeated him."

Marianne finished with such suddenness and firmness that Hermione couldn't help but find her words awfully suspicious. She chose to ignore the strange turn in conversation in favour of more pressing matters.

"I don't understand. If Riddle's magic grew so great because of his past, and Lily's grew to compete with him, why would mine be any different from yours?" Hermione looked up at the angry clouds again, barely tempered by the small patch of lovely blue and sunshine.

Marianne's lips pressed together. "I'm afraid I can't be sure, my dear. Perhaps you acquired greater magic because you were born at the end of Riddle's revolution, when he was at the height of his power. Perhaps it is because you are the only muggle-born to be born since Riddle's defeat." She hesitated. "Or, perhaps there is a new threat in your future."

Hermione looked at her hands, her heart rising in her throat. Marianne's long, delicate fingers with contrastingly chipped nails covered her own, prompting Hermione to meet her soft and steady gaze - the gaze of a woman with real strength and values.

"But I am here for you, Hermione," she murmured. "I may not be your family by blood, but I _am_ your family by magical circumstance. And just are your parents will be there for you in every other way, I will be here to guide you in magic."

Hermione nearly snorted. "I can't even stop feeling sorry for myself long enough to have tea on a sunny day," she moaned, her eyes growing wet.

Marianne grinned, her delight in life making a sudden reappearance. "Well that is your first lesson! Stop trying to throw away your feelings, my dear," Marianne leaned forward. " _Embrace_ your feelings, _feel_ your magic, and _begin shaping what it will be_."

Marianne worked with Hermione for the rest of the day on the balcony. Overlooking that endless, grassy plane, feeling sad and worried and all sorts of things about her future, Hermione stopped futilely trying to push away her anxieties and used her energy instead to push away the clouds until the sky was blue once more and, at last, she smiled again.

When Hermione returned home that night in a whirl of emerald flames, she found her two parents anxiously awaiting her arrival in the Living Room.

"Well? Helen prompted, hands fluttering fussily over Hermione.

Hermione caught her mother's hands and pulled her into a hug. Surprised, it took Helen a moment to squeeze her daughter back tightly.

"I think I'll be okay," Hermione murmured into her mother's hair, meeting her father's eyes across the room.

Dan peeked out the window to the clear sky beyond and smiled lovingly back.

 _ **A/N: This was a short chapter because it seemed more sensible to break it up here than later on.**_

 _ **The next chapter is well and truly underway. We'll finally be meeting a few highly anticipated characters in Diagon Alley! And some... less anticipated (or** **likeable** **) characters along the way.  
**_

 _ **Reviews keep me writing ;)**_


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